Declamation Piece- Despair of Judas

I will rest here, awhile. His face! His face! Not comely now. There is no beauty in it. It is scarred into my heart. It is burned into my soul and never will it lift from me until I die. Die? Will death quench the flames which consume me? Traitor, not endless years in hell can even pay the crime of murdering the son of God.

And last night, he dealt with me so gently. He washed my feet. He bade me to put my hand into the cup with his, while in my purse there jingled the coins which bought his blood. It was better for that man that he had never been born. Who? Who but I, who but I, I who betrayed him!

“What you do, do it quickly.” He knew, and kept my sin a secret.

“Friend, where unto have you come, Judas, Judas, do you betray the Son of God with a kiss?”

Friend! Friend! He called me his friend. The man I betrayed called me his friend. How hell must have laughed. Why did not the mountains fall on me?

Why did not the earth gape and swallow me up? Why did not the sea overwhelm me? Friend. Ha! Ha! Friend. Ha! Ha! Ha! The world will know Judas as the friend.

The world will point to Judas as a by word, and as a pledge of broken faith!

Do you think Judas you can hide from the father of your friend Jesus? Not even in hell can I escape. Not in the grave for the earth will spurn my corpse. Not in the heavens for Jesus the friend is there.

What hope for Judas? What hope for Judas? Not even in hell can I escape for he called me devil, and devils cried out: torment us not, Jesus, Judas, faithless friend, devil, one of whom it would have been better not to have been born.